www.nyc.gov/ceo

Engaging Disconnected Youth in NYC

Carson C. Hicks, Ph.D.US Department of Labor/ETAYoung Adult Conference

Boston, MA | November 15, 2011

About the Center

Center for Economic Opportunity• Established by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg to

develop, implement, monitor, and evaluate the City’s new anti-poverty programs.

Innovation Fund• $100 million public-private partnership.• Supports the implementation of CEO’s anti-

poverty initiatives and pilot programs.• Funds the monitoring and evaluation of

programs.

Commitment to Evaluation• All program outcomes tracked.• Program-specific evaluation strategies

developed.• Shares lessons learned and best practices to

partners, policy makers, funders and practitioners.

CEO releases annual reports on program and policy initiatives.

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How CEO Works

Center for Economic Opportunity• Funding, program design

and development, implementation, evaluation, and policy

Agencies• Management of contracts and

providers, and programimplementation

Providers• Provide direct service, recruit participants,

and offer other services

Mayor’s OfficeNYC Center for

Economic Opportunity

NYC Government Agencies

Non-Profit/Community Based Organizations

CEO Objectives and Approach

Identify Successful Anti-Poverty Programs• Implement new programs in collaboration with multiple City agencies.• Utilize strong internal and external evaluation teams to review programs,

identify best practices, and gauge success.• Base future funding decisions on program results.

Build a National Body of Evidence and Share Results• CEO pilots to be replicated nationwide through the Social Innovation Fund.• Share best practices and lessons learned.

Expand High Impact Programs • Graduate CEO’s successful pilots.• Expand promising programs through the Young Men’s Initiative.

Develop New Measures & Policies• Pursue an alternative to the outdated federal poverty measure.• Use lessons learned to inform future policy recommendations.

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CEO Youth Program Overview

Education• Expanded model GED-to-college program.• Supports community college student graduate in 3 years.• Pre-GED literacy program for low-level readers.

Employment • Paid internship and job/employment placement.• Service learning and job training for court-involved youth.• Green collar-job training.

Prevention• An afterschool service learning program.• Financial literacy & asset development for foster care youth.• High School based health centers.

New Initiatives• Social Innovation Fund: In July 2010, CEO, in partnership with the Mayor’s Fund to

Advance NYC, was awarded an annual $5.7 million Social Innovation Fund (SIF) grant to replicate five innovative anti-programs in 8 cities nationwide, including Project Rise.

• Young Men’s Initiative

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Education programs and other support services, as well as new work opportunities & internships

Social Innovation Fund: Project Rise

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STRATEGY CEO PROGRAMS EVALUATION RESULTS SIF PROGRAMS

Youth Development

Education programs and other support services, as well as work opportunities and internships

Young Adult Internship Program (DYCD) provides short-term paid internships, placement into jobs, education or advanced training, and follow-up services to disconnected youth ages 16 to 24 years old.

Young Adult Internship Program. An analysis of administrative data suggested that the program is effective in re-engaging disconnected youth; approximately half of the youth who entered the program remained engaged in employment or education nine months after completing the internship, including young adults with significant barriers.

Project Rise is an education-conditioned internship program. This twelve-month intervention targets disconnected young adults 18-24 years old in New York City, Kansas City (MO), and Newark.

Young Adult Literacy Program (DYCD and Libraries) offers targeted literacy and math instruction, work readiness, support services, and paid internships.

Young Adult Literacy Program. An evaluation showed that adding paid internships-conditioned on attendance in the education services led to increased attendance and program retention, as well as an increase in participants’ math gains.

Young Men’s Initiative

About the Initiative• The Young Men’s Initiative (YMI) is the Mayoral

response to an 18 month process of evaluation and research by a commission co-chaired by David Banks of Eagle Academy Foundation, and Ana Oliveira of the New York Women’s Foundation.

• YMI is a comprehensive effort to tackle the broad disparities slowing the advancement of young men of color in NYC.

Investment• Three-year action plan will invest $127 million to

support new programs and policies designed to breakdown barriers to success.

Issue Areas• The plan advances four areas where the

disparities are greatest and the consequences most harmful: Education; Employment; Justice; Health.

The Chairs of Young Men’s Initiative released their recommendations in

August 2011

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Disconnected Youth in NYC

In New York City, one in five persons between the ages of 17 and 24—an estimated 173,000 young people—is neither in school nor in jobs.

One-third of New York City’s disconnected youth lack a high school diploma.

Most disconnected youth have grown up in economically disadvantaged households, and often find themselves in financial crises of their own as they transition into adulthood.

Source: Community Service Society, (June, 2011)

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YMI: Education

The Challenges• Black and Latino youth have a

graduation rate of 47% compared to 70% of their white peers.

• The black-white achievement gap is 26% in math and 19% in English.

• The Latino-white achievement gap is 22% in math and 19% in English.

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YMI: Education

Programs• New investment of $24 million will launch the Expanded Success Initiative, the

first effort in the country to focus on erasing the gap in college and career readiness by determining which strategies work best to graduate black and Latino males.

• $3 million expansion of CEO’s Young Adult Literacy Program, a program operated by DYCD and Public Library Systems that offers targeted literacy and math instruction, work readiness, support services, and paid internships.

• Fund the Community Education Pathway to Success (CEPS) a pre-GED program developed by the Youth Development Institute, a $3 million investment.

• $1 million investment in mentoring for elementary and middle school students implemented by DYCD afterschool programs.

Policy Recommendations• Prevent unnecessary referrals of boys of color to special education.• Improve school climate and academic outcomes for suspended students.• Expand efforts to attract men of color to teaching profession.• Hold schools accountable for achievement gap.

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YMI: Employment

The Challenges• NYC has roughly half the national

average of teen employment.

• In 2010, NYC had over 100,000 more applicants for summer youth employment than they were able to fill.

• Nearly twice as many black 16-24 year old black males are unemployed compared to their white peers.

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YMI: Employment

Programs• Expand CEO’s Jobs-Plus program by $24 million, which removes

barriers to work for residents in public housing and helps connect them to jobs.

• Expand CEO’s Young Adult Internship Program by $9 million, which provides short-term paid internships, placement into jobs, education or advanced training, and follow-up services to disconnected youth ages 16 to 24 years old.

• Expand training slots in existing Small Business Services (SBS) programs.

Policy Recommendations • Expand the City’s summer youth employment program.

• Reducing barriers to employment by helping young people access official ID’s.

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YMI: Justice

The Challenges• 84% of Juvenile Justice admissions in NYC are of black or Latino young

men.

• Three out of four young men who leave Department of Correction custody return to jail within one year.

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YMI: Justice

Programs• $6 million expansion of CEO’s NYC Justice Corps, which helps young adults

involved with the criminal justice system to reintegrate into their communities through community benefit projects, paid internships, educational opportunities and support.

• $6.3 million will support Department of Probation’s Justice Scholars and Justice Community programs to help court-involved youth explore career and education options.

• $13.6 million will help establish intensive mentoring programs in Department of Probation Neighborhood Opportunity Networks (NeONs) for youth on probation.

• $9 million will be invested in providing cognitive behavioral therapy for adolescents on Riker’s Island.

Policy Recommendations • Ease young people’s access to obtain and correct mistakes on RAP sheets.

• Allow parolees to vote upon completion of their custody.

• Eliminate barriers that employers use to discriminate against hiring young people with backgrounds.

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YMI: Health

The Challenges• Teens living in high-poverty

neighborhoods are three times as likely to get pregnant compared to their peers in more affluent neighborhoods.

• 51% of black and 46% of Latino children grow up in a father-absent household.

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YMI: Health

Programs• The City University of New York (CUNY) will receive about $1.1 million to support

Project REDRESS, an initiative that engages student fathers in parenting skills while connecting them to college education and employment opportunities.

• Project Ceasefire is a public health violence prevention model that focuses on the highest-risk communities and youth and will expand with a $2.4 million investment.

• The City launched the Fatherhood Initiative to establish new programs in multiple agencies that will strengthen relationships of fathers with their children.

• $1.5 million is allocated for the creation of a training program through City Health and Hospitals Corporation to better prepare physicians, nurses, and other providers to work with adolescents.

Policy Recommendations • Ease the process for young people to access the Family Benefit Planning Program.

• Increase school-based mental health clinics.

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CEO Evaluation Strategies

All Programs Assessed with Evaluation Strategies Based on

Examples of Assessment

• Availability of data• Implementation status• Timing of expected outcomes

• General knowledge of intervention• Strength of program model• Level of investment

Program Evaluation

CEPS Program Evaluate long term outcomes and dosage. How long do participants remain engaged? How long does it take for educational gains to occur?

Young Adult Internship Program

Randomized assignment evaluation implemented with existing and new YMI providers to compare the participants’ outcomes with a control group.

Justice Community Analysis of recidivism rates, employment and educational outcomes, and community impact. Outcomes will be compared to baseline data for court-involved youth. Implementation study will look at how various providers implement model.

Project REDRESS Evaluation will examine whether fathers participating in program improve educational and familial outcomes relative to fathers at CUNY who are not in program.

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For More Information, visit nyc.gov/ceo

Carson C. Hicks, Ph.D.

Deputy Director of Evaluation

NYC Center for Economic Opportunity

212-788-2148 | Chicks@cityhall.nyc.gov

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